Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Incoming Caterpillar CEO has a green agenda (CAT)

It's almost mind-boggling to look at CAT as a green play.However the company is a member of the lobbying group USCAP, although they recently called for carbon taxes rather than USCAP's cap-and-trade position.From the Chicago Tribune:

Douglas Oberhelman, named last week the incoming CEO of Caterpillar Inc., acknowledges it's hard for people to identify a company "famous for bulldozers" with an environmental agenda.

But in an interview and in a speech last week in Chicago, he said that's where the company, like his farm, is heading.

At his Peoria County, Ill., farm, Oberhelman says, he walks the talk.

He has added terraces, wetlands and wildlife around what once was a coal mine, and he trades corn and beans he raises on 250 acres with a neighbor who, in turn, supplies him manure from 1,500 dairy cows.

A Caterpillar engine helps to convert fumes from the manure into electricity, which, in turn, powers the farm he bought in 1997.

The company also is "doing things that might surprise you," 56-year-old Oberhelman said last Thursday at an event sponsored by the conservation group Ducks Unlimited.

Previously as president of the company's engine and services business, Oberhelman expanded Caterpillar's "remanufacturing" efforts in China, Singapore and India so that only 10 percent of old engine parts end up in a landfill. And the same engine Oberhelman uses to produce electricity on his farm is used by Waste Management, the trash company.

"They've joked with me about becoming a public utility," he said.

And rather than install 4,300-horsepower engines in diesel locomotives, Caterpillar now installs two: one at 3,500 horsepower and the other at 800 horsepower.

"I went on a 30-mile test run, and the more powerful engine only had to be used half the time," he said. "You don't need it on a downhill run. It's a very green solution for our customers.">>>MORE